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The collapse of BHS - S branded the unacceptable | 0:00:07 | 0:00:10 | |
face of capitalism. | 0:00:10 | 0:00:12 | |
I'm saying Philip, because he should not be Sir Philip, | 0:00:12 | 0:00:14 | |
because he's shafted us all, hasn't he? | 0:00:14 | 0:00:18 | |
Envy and jealousy my doctor told me are incurable diseases. | 0:00:18 | 0:00:21 | |
I've done nothing wrong. | 0:00:21 | 0:00:25 | |
There's still no deal in sight for the BHS pensioners. | 0:00:25 | 0:00:29 | |
Cut the crap and actually start delivering to them. | 0:00:29 | 0:00:33 | |
Sir Philip Green's under scrutiny and under pressure. | 0:00:33 | 0:00:36 | |
He was a bully. | 0:00:36 | 0:00:39 | |
The deal was open ended. | 0:00:39 | 0:00:41 | |
The deal is not a deal. | 0:00:41 | 0:00:44 | |
It's a scandal that's tarnished the reputation of British business. | 0:00:44 | 0:00:47 | |
Would you give it back? | 0:00:47 | 0:00:49 | |
No, I have no intention of giving that money back. | 0:00:49 | 0:00:52 | |
We hear from the man whose bid to save BHS was turned down. | 0:00:52 | 0:00:57 | |
I was 100% convinced, with the backing I had, we could put a | 0:00:57 | 0:01:01 | |
credible offer to Sir Philip. | 0:01:01 | 0:01:03 | |
We discover special payments for favoured BHS staff. | 0:01:03 | 0:01:09 | |
The people at the bottom end, who do the hard work, | 0:01:09 | 0:01:12 | |
generate the profit, always get left behind. | 0:01:12 | 0:01:18 | |
As Parliament prepares to debate the demise of BHS, we ask: | 0:01:18 | 0:01:21 | |
How was it allowed to happen? | 0:01:21 | 0:01:26 | |
This summer in an Italian port, the finishing touches were being put | 0:01:45 | 0:01:49 | |
to ?100 million yacht. | 0:01:49 | 0:01:54 | |
The owner, Lady Green, was checking every designer detail, | 0:01:54 | 0:01:57 | |
as her husband was being grilled in Parliament about | 0:01:57 | 0:02:00 | |
the collapse of BHS. | 0:02:00 | 0:02:03 | |
I don't tell lies. | 0:02:03 | 0:02:05 | |
You can probe them all you like. | 0:02:05 | 0:02:07 | |
I'm not hiding. | 0:02:07 | 0:02:09 | |
I can't answer you. | 0:02:09 | 0:02:11 | |
Sir, do you mind not looking at me like that all the time. | 0:02:11 | 0:02:14 | |
It's really disturbing. | 0:02:14 | 0:02:16 | |
It didn't stop the Greens enjoying a nine-week cruise in the Med. | 0:02:16 | 0:02:22 | |
I made a very different journey to Liverpool. | 0:02:22 | 0:02:28 | |
Like many high streets in Britain, it's dominated | 0:02:28 | 0:02:30 | |
by Sir Philip's brands. | 0:02:30 | 0:02:34 | |
The biggest of them was BHS. | 0:02:34 | 0:02:39 | |
Well, the BHS store may not be one of the city's architectural gems, | 0:02:39 | 0:02:44 | |
but it's long held a very special place in the heart and | 0:02:44 | 0:02:47 | |
the history of Liverpool. | 0:02:47 | 0:02:54 | |
BHS has been in Liverpool since the 1950s. | 0:02:54 | 0:02:58 | |
Some families have worked here for generations. | 0:02:58 | 0:03:07 | |
I think my proudest moment, if you like, is when I | 0:03:07 | 0:03:10 | |
was made the general manager of BHS Liverpool. | 0:03:10 | 0:03:20 | |
It's a company with a logo, but your consumer, | 0:03:20 | 0:03:22 | |
we're the face of BHS. | 0:03:22 | 0:03:25 | |
We have always made BHS and what BHS has stood for. | 0:03:25 | 0:03:28 | |
This was a summer of leaving parties, in Liverpool | 0:03:28 | 0:03:31 | |
and across the country, as staff prepared to close | 0:03:31 | 0:03:34 | |
their stores for good. | 0:03:34 | 0:03:37 | |
Yeah, blood, sweat and a lot of tears, I know. | 0:03:37 | 0:03:39 | |
There will be a lot of tears at the end definitely. | 0:03:39 | 0:03:46 | |
The collapse of BHS with ?500 million hole in the pension fund has | 0:03:46 | 0:03:49 | |
left many feeling betrayed. | 0:03:49 | 0:03:54 | |
Philip Green, I'm saying Philip, because he should not be Sir Philip, | 0:03:54 | 0:03:57 | |
the way she's shafted us all, hasn't he? | 0:03:57 | 0:04:01 | |
And doesn't think he's done anything wrong. | 0:04:01 | 0:04:03 | |
That's what I can't understand. | 0:04:03 | 0:04:06 | |
Things have changed for Sir Philip. | 0:04:06 | 0:04:09 | |
Knighted for his services to retail, he once hobnobbed | 0:04:09 | 0:04:13 | |
with royalty and showbiz stars. | 0:04:13 | 0:04:16 | |
Go away. | 0:04:16 | 0:04:19 | |
Now he's under pressure, like never before. | 0:04:19 | 0:04:23 | |
He has the mannerisms of a wide boy. | 0:04:23 | 0:04:26 | |
He's very determined. | 0:04:26 | 0:04:29 | |
Lots of use of expletives. | 0:04:29 | 0:04:31 | |
You have to accept if you do business with Philip he's | 0:04:31 | 0:04:34 | |
going to call you some pretty unpleasant things and to | 0:04:34 | 0:04:37 | |
be quite aggressive. | 0:04:37 | 0:04:40 | |
Before he bought BHS, Sir Philip's flamboyant | 0:04:40 | 0:04:42 | |
style had mixed results. | 0:04:42 | 0:04:46 | |
The young entrepreneur's jeans venture, endorsed | 0:04:46 | 0:04:48 | |
by Joan Collins, failed. | 0:04:48 | 0:04:53 | |
At retailer and public company, Amber Day, he clashed with | 0:04:53 | 0:04:56 | |
shareholders and the board. | 0:04:56 | 0:04:59 | |
He had to leave. | 0:04:59 | 0:05:02 | |
It was a lesson for Philip Green. | 0:05:02 | 0:05:06 | |
When he acquired BHS in 2000, he took it private. | 0:05:06 | 0:05:09 | |
He would no longer be accountable to shareholders. | 0:05:09 | 0:05:11 | |
Great value, good quality. | 0:05:11 | 0:05:16 | |
The much-loved British institution had been in trouble. | 0:05:16 | 0:05:19 | |
Within two years, he was claiming a dramatic turnaround. | 0:05:19 | 0:05:22 | |
I want to win on the High Street. | 0:05:22 | 0:05:24 | |
It's not about making money. | 0:05:24 | 0:05:26 | |
It's about getting it right. | 0:05:26 | 0:05:30 | |
In the first four years, it looked like he was getting it right. | 0:05:30 | 0:05:32 | |
BHS was making money again. | 0:05:32 | 0:05:34 | |
Profits of ?208 million. | 0:05:34 | 0:05:38 | |
But twice that much, over ?400 million was | 0:05:38 | 0:05:44 | |
paid out in dividends. | 0:05:44 | 0:05:46 | |
?307 million went to the Green family, off-shore. | 0:05:46 | 0:05:51 | |
It ended up in Monaco, a tax haven and magnet | 0:05:51 | 0:05:55 | |
for the megarich. | 0:05:55 | 0:05:59 | |
It's home to Philip Green's wife, Tina. | 0:05:59 | 0:06:03 | |
He loves his job. | 0:06:03 | 0:06:05 | |
He loves his family. | 0:06:05 | 0:06:07 | |
I started with him. | 0:06:07 | 0:06:09 | |
I've been with him for 25 years. | 0:06:09 | 0:06:11 | |
So, we came from nothing and from very humble beginnings. | 0:06:11 | 0:06:14 | |
He's still a very humble man today. | 0:06:14 | 0:06:16 | |
I love that about him, because he is a very humble man. | 0:06:16 | 0:06:19 | |
Yes, he has a big roar, and yes, he has a big personality, | 0:06:19 | 0:06:23 | |
you know, without that, there's no Philip Green. | 0:06:23 | 0:06:30 | |
When BHS went under, MPs wanted to understand the Greens' | 0:06:30 | 0:06:33 | |
complex financial affairs. | 0:06:33 | 0:06:40 | |
So when it says in the accounts, "P Green and his immediate family | 0:06:40 | 0:06:45 | |
are the ultimate controlling party," what does that refer to? | 0:06:45 | 0:06:48 | |
I'm not the shareholder or beneficiary. | 0:06:48 | 0:06:50 | |
I don't have any shares. | 0:06:50 | 0:06:52 | |
This is your wife then? | 0:06:52 | 0:06:54 | |
Yes. | 0:06:54 | 0:06:56 | |
She has the accounts, you don't? | 0:06:56 | 0:06:58 | |
I've never had an overseas bank account. | 0:06:58 | 0:07:03 | |
Sir Philip ran BHS but it was his wife, Lady Green, | 0:07:03 | 0:07:06 | |
who ultimately owned it. | 0:07:06 | 0:07:10 | |
I think Lady Green's role was a simple but | 0:07:10 | 0:07:13 | |
incredibly fruitful role. | 0:07:13 | 0:07:16 | |
Because the actual ownership was with Lady Green | 0:07:16 | 0:07:18 | |
they were able to escape taxes. | 0:07:18 | 0:07:21 | |
I think there's no question that the person that pulls | 0:07:21 | 0:07:26 | |
everybody's strings and the Napoleon in the sense of this whole farce | 0:07:26 | 0:07:29 | |
is Sir Philip Green himself. | 0:07:29 | 0:07:33 | |
Philip Green is a man who likes to be in control. | 0:07:33 | 0:07:37 | |
I think that is maybe not strong enough. | 0:07:37 | 0:07:45 | |
I went to meet someone who knows him well and who worked with him at BHS. | 0:07:48 | 0:07:55 | |
Philip is a bit abrasive at times, but really intense. | 0:07:55 | 0:07:57 | |
A guy who absolutely knows what he wants, | 0:07:57 | 0:08:02 | |
how to get it and how to manage a business of that size. | 0:08:02 | 0:08:05 | |
His family's life, you know, was all invested in that business. | 0:08:05 | 0:08:08 | |
His mother loved the stores. | 0:08:08 | 0:08:11 | |
His daughter worked in the stores. | 0:08:11 | 0:08:13 | |
I can remember Chloe being behind the tills at BHS. | 0:08:13 | 0:08:16 | |
Philip Green saved that company. | 0:08:16 | 0:08:18 | |
The intensity of work that went into those first three | 0:08:18 | 0:08:21 | |
years and beyond there. | 0:08:21 | 0:08:25 | |
But Parliament had a different take on the BHS success story. | 0:08:25 | 0:08:33 | |
Despite the growth in profits, sales had stayed roughly the same. | 0:08:33 | 0:08:38 | |
Sir Philip made money by driving down costs and squeezing suppliers. | 0:08:38 | 0:08:44 | |
He widened the margins through being very aggressive on his sourcing, | 0:08:44 | 0:08:48 | |
driving for the very lowest cost of goods. | 0:08:48 | 0:08:50 | |
It's running the business not with a ten-year view, | 0:08:50 | 0:08:53 | |
but with a two or three-year view. | 0:08:53 | 0:08:55 | |
He was very good at doing that. | 0:08:55 | 0:08:59 | |
A number of BHS suppliers told us they felt the squeeze. | 0:08:59 | 0:09:03 | |
Carol Duncumb says, for her, it was particularly uncomfortable. | 0:09:03 | 0:09:09 | |
In 2003, her business had agreed a ?5 million contract with BHS. | 0:09:09 | 0:09:12 | |
Some stock had even been delivered. | 0:09:12 | 0:09:16 | |
Then Philip Green summoned her to his London headquarters. | 0:09:16 | 0:09:21 | |
I was left with a couple of his senior henchmen. | 0:09:21 | 0:09:27 | |
They were very direct in their message to me, | 0:09:27 | 0:09:32 | |
which was that if we weren't prepared to write a cheque | 0:09:32 | 0:09:37 | |
back to Philip Green, back to BHS, then we would have | 0:09:37 | 0:09:41 | |
to consider our options, which meant essentially | 0:09:41 | 0:09:43 | |
cancelling the order book. | 0:09:43 | 0:09:48 | |
Losing the rest of the multimillion pound order would have left | 0:09:48 | 0:09:51 | |
Carol's company in trouble. | 0:09:51 | 0:09:54 | |
She wrote a cheque for ?100,000. | 0:09:54 | 0:09:57 | |
She then went to look for Philip Green. | 0:09:57 | 0:10:01 | |
I told him I was disgusted by the way I'd been treated. | 0:10:01 | 0:10:04 | |
What did he say to that? | 0:10:04 | 0:10:06 | |
He laughed. | 0:10:06 | 0:10:13 | |
That resulted in fairly heavy words between the two of us. | 0:10:13 | 0:10:16 | |
And what did that incident tell you about Sir Philip Green? | 0:10:16 | 0:10:25 | |
He was a bully, that a deal was open ended. | 0:10:25 | 0:10:28 | |
A deal is not a deal. | 0:10:28 | 0:10:35 | |
A spokesman for Sir Philip said BHS sold ?12 billion worth of goods. | 0:10:35 | 0:10:38 | |
It's unreasonable to expect a comment on one possible | 0:10:38 | 0:10:41 | |
dispute over ?100,000. | 0:10:41 | 0:10:46 | |
But there's one supplier who was much closer to Sir Philip. | 0:10:46 | 0:10:51 | |
Richard Caring, his equally well connected friend. | 0:10:51 | 0:10:55 | |
His company supplied women's wear to BHS. | 0:10:55 | 0:11:03 | |
Richard has a number of factories, I think, himself, he was able to get | 0:11:03 | 0:11:07 | |
cost prices that we needed as we expanded the business. | 0:11:07 | 0:11:09 | |
Any business, when you start up, it was pretty much a start up, | 0:11:09 | 0:11:14 | |
when Sir Philip took over BHS, you need a supply | 0:11:14 | 0:11:17 | |
base you can rely on. | 0:11:17 | 0:11:20 | |
But other suppliers suspected there was more to the relationship | 0:11:20 | 0:11:23 | |
between Sir Philip and Richard Caring. | 0:11:23 | 0:11:27 | |
His name cropped up a lot from buyers and buying directors. | 0:11:27 | 0:11:33 | |
He certainly seemed to have quite a bit of interest in what other | 0:11:33 | 0:11:37 | |
suppliers into BHS were doing. | 0:11:37 | 0:11:40 | |
What no-one knew back then was that Richard Caring was more | 0:11:40 | 0:11:43 | |
than just a supplier. | 0:11:43 | 0:11:49 | |
In 2001, he bought a stake in BHS for ?10 million. | 0:11:49 | 0:11:53 | |
He got 22% of the business. | 0:11:53 | 0:11:57 | |
His investment only became public last year. | 0:11:57 | 0:12:02 | |
MPs wanted to know why it had stayed hidden for so long. | 0:12:02 | 0:12:07 | |
Mr Caring told them his stake was kept quiet in case other BHS | 0:12:07 | 0:12:12 | |
suppliers might think they had an advantage over them, by seeing | 0:12:12 | 0:12:15 | |
their product lines and prices. | 0:12:15 | 0:12:18 | |
At the time, it didn't stop Carol Duncumb having her suspicions. | 0:12:18 | 0:12:23 | |
It was possible that Richard's businesses were | 0:12:23 | 0:12:26 | |
cross-costing against ours. | 0:12:26 | 0:12:29 | |
What does that mean? | 0:12:29 | 0:12:32 | |
That they were looking at what we were supplying, | 0:12:32 | 0:12:35 | |
looking at the garment, the design and the costing. | 0:12:35 | 0:12:38 | |
Richard Caring told us there was nothing inappropriate | 0:12:38 | 0:12:40 | |
about his arrangement with BHS and that he sold his share | 0:12:40 | 0:12:43 | |
in the company years before it got into trouble. | 0:12:43 | 0:12:48 | |
By then, Richard Caring had already done very well out of BHS. | 0:12:48 | 0:12:55 | |
By 2006, he'd received ?93 million in dividends, nine | 0:12:55 | 0:12:57 | |
times what he put in. | 0:12:57 | 0:13:07 | |
When Lady Green bought BHS the Greens got much more | 0:13:07 | 0:13:09 | |
than a retail business. | 0:13:09 | 0:13:13 | |
They got a portfolio of valuable properties too. | 0:13:13 | 0:13:16 | |
It was another opportunity to make money. | 0:13:16 | 0:13:20 | |
What the people who worked here at BHS in Liverpool didn't know | 0:13:20 | 0:13:23 | |
is that Sir Philip Green had sold the store. | 0:13:23 | 0:13:28 | |
It was one of a group of prime sites hived off to his own wife. | 0:13:28 | 0:13:32 | |
It would earn the Greens tens of millions of pounds and bring them | 0:13:32 | 0:13:35 | |
huge tax advantages. | 0:13:35 | 0:13:41 | |
The money washed up off-shore in another tax haven, | 0:13:41 | 0:13:43 | |
this time in Jersey. | 0:13:43 | 0:13:50 | |
Ten BHS properties were sold to another of Lady Green's | 0:13:51 | 0:13:55 | |
companies, which was based here for ?106 million. | 0:13:55 | 0:13:59 | |
She then charged BHS rent for them. | 0:13:59 | 0:14:05 | |
Over the next 15 years, Lady Green collected ?153 million. | 0:14:05 | 0:14:15 | |
By making sure the rents came off-shore here to Jersey, | 0:14:17 | 0:14:20 | |
Lady Green reduced her tax bill. | 0:14:20 | 0:14:23 | |
At the same time, because it was paying rents, | 0:14:23 | 0:14:29 | |
BHS back in the UK, made less profits, so it too paid less tax. | 0:14:29 | 0:14:35 | |
He could reduce the tax payable in the UK to a point | 0:14:35 | 0:14:37 | |
when there was almost no tax at all. | 0:14:37 | 0:14:40 | |
All perfectly legal. | 0:14:40 | 0:14:42 | |
Absolutely legal. | 0:14:42 | 0:14:44 | |
Good business practice? | 0:14:44 | 0:14:46 | |
Legal. | 0:14:46 | 0:14:48 | |
Good business practice? | 0:14:48 | 0:14:50 | |
That must be judged against the context | 0:14:50 | 0:14:52 | |
of what you're seeking to do. | 0:14:52 | 0:14:55 | |
Soon, Sir Philip was parading his latest acquisition, | 0:14:55 | 0:14:57 | |
top model Kate Moss. | 0:14:57 | 0:15:01 | |
She was the new face of Topshop ? part of the Arcadia Group | 0:15:01 | 0:15:04 | |
the Greens bought in 2002. | 0:15:04 | 0:15:07 | |
Banks had been happy to lend money off the back of Sir Philip's | 0:15:07 | 0:15:11 | |
apparent success at BHS. | 0:15:11 | 0:15:17 | |
Arcadia's profits improved too. | 0:15:17 | 0:15:21 | |
Lady Green, the ultimate owner, took another dividend tax-free ? | 0:15:21 | 0:15:25 | |
a massive ?1.3 billion. | 0:15:25 | 0:15:35 | |
Arcadia's parent company bought BHS in 2009. | 0:15:37 | 0:15:40 | |
By now, the high street was changing. | 0:15:40 | 0:15:43 | |
When you have a heavy discounter like Primark | 0:15:43 | 0:15:46 | |
in the arena, you have to either follow it down | 0:15:46 | 0:15:49 | |
or change your business model, and you cannot change your | 0:15:49 | 0:15:51 | |
business model overnight. | 0:15:51 | 0:15:55 | |
Increasingly, BHS became a poor shopping experience | 0:15:55 | 0:15:56 | |
for the consumer. | 0:15:56 | 0:15:59 | |
It lacked focus as to what it actually | 0:15:59 | 0:16:01 | |
was, finally. | 0:16:01 | 0:16:04 | |
It felt underinvested and underloved. | 0:16:04 | 0:16:11 | |
Sir Philip has said even after BHS stopped making profits, | 0:16:11 | 0:16:15 | |
Arcadia still invested ?600 million. | 0:16:15 | 0:16:19 | |
It didn't feel like it in Stockport. | 0:16:19 | 0:16:25 | |
Anne Bostock joined BHS when she was 16. | 0:16:25 | 0:16:28 | |
She met her husband here. | 0:16:28 | 0:16:34 | |
The roof leaked. It was never fixed. | 0:16:34 | 0:16:36 | |
Most of the tills weren't working. | 0:16:36 | 0:16:40 | |
If we wanted anything painting, there was no company to come | 0:16:40 | 0:16:43 | |
in and paint it for you, staff had to do that. | 0:16:43 | 0:16:47 | |
We had to all muck in and do all sorts of things, | 0:16:47 | 0:16:51 | |
not just what you were paid to do. | 0:16:51 | 0:16:53 | |
You had to do the extra mile | 0:16:53 | 0:16:56 | |
to look after things and keep things going. | 0:16:56 | 0:17:01 | |
Arcadia kept BHS afloat. | 0:17:01 | 0:17:07 | |
Sir Philip told Parliament he only considered getting rid | 0:17:07 | 0:17:09 | |
of it two years ago. | 0:17:09 | 0:17:13 | |
What was the point that you started to think about selling BHS? | 0:17:13 | 0:17:16 | |
When did that first occur? | 0:17:16 | 0:17:24 | |
I would probably say about 14. | 0:17:24 | 0:17:27 | |
2014? | 0:17:27 | 0:17:28 | |
Yes. | 0:17:28 | 0:17:34 | |
But seven years earlier, profits at BHS were stalling. | 0:17:34 | 0:17:38 | |
And there were rumours then in the City that Sir Philip | 0:17:38 | 0:17:43 | |
was thinking about selling BHS to his own non-executive | 0:17:43 | 0:17:46 | |
chairman. | 0:17:46 | 0:17:49 | |
Sir Philip's spokesman told us every business gets | 0:17:49 | 0:17:51 | |
approached from time to time. | 0:17:51 | 0:17:55 | |
But there was no sale process and nothing happened. | 0:17:55 | 0:17:58 | |
But we've discovered there was more to it. | 0:17:58 | 0:18:01 | |
Sir Philip even named his price. | 0:18:01 | 0:18:07 | |
We understand Sir Philip wanted half a billion pounds for BHS. | 0:18:07 | 0:18:12 | |
His own chief financial officer came here to bankers Goldman Sachs | 0:18:12 | 0:18:15 | |
to discuss the possible sale. | 0:18:15 | 0:18:19 | |
But "Project Bungalow", as it was codenamed, went no further. | 0:18:19 | 0:18:22 | |
When we then asked Sir Philip's spokesman | 0:18:22 | 0:18:25 | |
about the meeting at Goldman Sachs, he said there had been | 0:18:25 | 0:18:28 | |
an approach via the bank. | 0:18:28 | 0:18:31 | |
The talks happened as a hole was appearing | 0:18:31 | 0:18:33 | |
in the BHS pension fund. | 0:18:33 | 0:18:39 | |
The deficit went from ?7 million in 2006 to ?233 million | 0:18:39 | 0:18:42 | |
six years later. | 0:18:42 | 0:18:43 | |
It was made worse by the financial crash. | 0:18:43 | 0:18:53 | |
Arcadia had been propping up BHS. | 0:18:54 | 0:18:57 | |
Finally, Sir Philip decided it couldn't go on. | 0:18:57 | 0:19:02 | |
Who would buy a failing high street giant with a black hole | 0:19:02 | 0:19:04 | |
in the pension fund? | 0:19:04 | 0:19:08 | |
Out here in the Dorset countryside, there was one would-be entrepreneur | 0:19:08 | 0:19:12 | |
who thought he could be the answer to Sir Philip's prayers. | 0:19:12 | 0:19:22 | |
That man was Dominic Chappell, a former racing driver. | 0:19:22 | 0:19:28 | |
I had no experience of retail whatsoever, | 0:19:28 | 0:19:31 | |
but what we had done was, we'd amassed | 0:19:31 | 0:19:34 | |
a number of people who were very skilled at retail, | 0:19:34 | 0:19:39 | |
and the retail business, and also, we were buying | 0:19:39 | 0:19:41 | |
into the management of BHS and we were backing | 0:19:41 | 0:19:43 | |
that management to take the company forward. | 0:19:43 | 0:19:45 | |
The man himself, though, didn't have much of a track | 0:19:45 | 0:19:47 | |
record in business. | 0:19:47 | 0:19:51 | |
You were a bankrupt? | 0:19:51 | 0:19:53 | |
That's right, six years prior to that I worked | 0:19:53 | 0:19:55 | |
as an entrepreneur and that goes with the territory, | 0:19:55 | 0:19:57 | |
it's a risk that we take. | 0:19:57 | 0:19:58 | |
You were twice bankrupt? | 0:19:58 | 0:20:00 | |
That's right. | 0:20:00 | 0:20:01 | |
And did Sir Philip Green know that you were bankrupt? | 0:20:01 | 0:20:04 | |
Yes. | 0:20:04 | 0:20:05 | |
But there was another offer ? from someone | 0:20:05 | 0:20:07 | |
who knew BHS inside out. | 0:20:07 | 0:20:08 | |
Tony Brown to the ground floor, please. | 0:20:08 | 0:20:11 | |
Tony Brown, the former BHS retail director. | 0:20:11 | 0:20:20 | |
He'd moved on to run other big stores. | 0:20:20 | 0:20:22 | |
This is the first time he's spoken about his bid for BHS. | 0:20:22 | 0:20:25 | |
I knew BHS, and I'd given it a lot of thought. | 0:20:25 | 0:20:28 | |
I knew the problems it was having, I knew some of the things that | 0:20:28 | 0:20:33 | |
were working and weren't working because I still had contacts | 0:20:33 | 0:20:35 | |
inside the business. | 0:20:35 | 0:20:37 | |
And I was 100% convinced with the backing that I had | 0:20:37 | 0:20:39 | |
that we could put a credible offer to Sir Philip. | 0:20:39 | 0:20:42 | |
Mr Brown said he would only buy if Sir Philip put more money | 0:20:42 | 0:20:45 | |
into BHS to help it survive. | 0:20:45 | 0:20:50 | |
Sir Philip turned his deal down in favour of Mr Chappell's. | 0:20:50 | 0:20:55 | |
It was clearly wasn't as attractive to Sir Philip as Chappell's. | 0:20:55 | 0:20:57 | |
Why wasn't it as attractive? | 0:20:57 | 0:20:59 | |
Erm, it would have cost him more to do my deal. | 0:20:59 | 0:21:02 | |
How much more? | 0:21:02 | 0:21:03 | |
Probably about 100 million more. | 0:21:03 | 0:21:05 | |
So it was significantly less attractive. | 0:21:05 | 0:21:11 | |
Dominic Chappell said he could put up ?120 million, | 0:21:11 | 0:21:13 | |
but didn't deliver. | 0:21:13 | 0:21:14 | |
Sir Philip sorted it. | 0:21:14 | 0:21:19 | |
He wrote off ?200 million of debt while leaving | 0:21:19 | 0:21:21 | |
a ?40 million loan in place. | 0:21:21 | 0:21:25 | |
He guaranteed a further ?25 million loan. | 0:21:25 | 0:21:28 | |
Then he put in another ?10m. | 0:21:28 | 0:21:31 | |
And so BHS was sold. | 0:21:31 | 0:21:41 | |
Why was Dominic Chapell built up? | 0:21:42 | 0:21:46 | |
I think it was a real wish to, now the assets have been ripped | 0:21:46 | 0:21:49 | |
out of BHS, to be able to dump the pension fund, and therefore | 0:21:49 | 0:21:53 | |
it was necessary to have somebody who is naive enough not to realise | 0:21:53 | 0:21:56 | |
what they were walking into. | 0:21:56 | 0:22:04 | |
As the Greens cracked open the champagne last summer, | 0:22:04 | 0:22:07 | |
the deal had already prompted an investigation | 0:22:07 | 0:22:09 | |
by the pension fund regulator. | 0:22:09 | 0:22:15 | |
Neither Sir Philip Green nor Dominic Chappell had sorted out | 0:22:15 | 0:22:18 | |
the pension deficit. | 0:22:18 | 0:22:24 | |
The regulator wanted to know how much Sir Philip had taken out | 0:22:24 | 0:22:29 | |
of the business to gauge what detrimental effect this had | 0:22:29 | 0:22:31 | |
had on the business. | 0:22:31 | 0:22:32 | |
Philip wouldn't give them that information. | 0:22:32 | 0:22:36 | |
A spokesman for Sir Philip says information about BHS | 0:22:36 | 0:22:38 | |
was publicly available. | 0:22:38 | 0:22:42 | |
Dominic Chappell failed to turn the business around. | 0:22:42 | 0:22:49 | |
Sir Philip Green called in his loan. That was the end for BHS. | 0:22:49 | 0:22:53 | |
He said "Fine, that's it, I'm not putting any more money | 0:22:53 | 0:22:56 | |
into this, it's going to go bust anyway because we can't | 0:22:56 | 0:22:59 | |
sort out the pension. | 0:22:59 | 0:23:00 | |
I'm going to pull the pin", and that's what he did. | 0:23:00 | 0:23:02 | |
I said "It's completely out of order, Philip, this is absolutely | 0:23:02 | 0:23:05 | |
ridiculous." | 0:23:05 | 0:23:06 | |
He said, "That's show business". | 0:23:06 | 0:23:10 | |
Dominic Chappell and his company took ?11 million out | 0:23:10 | 0:23:13 | |
of BHS in fees and salaries in just a year. | 0:23:13 | 0:23:17 | |
The Select Committee were very clear that you personally enriched | 0:23:17 | 0:23:19 | |
yourself at the expense of British Home Stores. | 0:23:19 | 0:23:23 | |
I personally have got a lot of expenses, so the money I took | 0:23:23 | 0:23:26 | |
from British Home Stores is totally justified because of | 0:23:26 | 0:23:28 | |
the work and the effort that we put in when we did it. | 0:23:28 | 0:23:31 | |
And how much is it? | 0:23:31 | 0:23:32 | |
It's over a million. | 0:23:32 | 0:23:34 | |
And that money should go back to the pensioners, shouldn't it? | 0:23:34 | 0:23:36 | |
I mean, there's... | 0:23:36 | 0:23:37 | |
No. | 0:23:37 | 0:23:38 | |
..A huge deficit there. | 0:23:38 | 0:23:39 | |
And would you give it back? | 0:23:39 | 0:23:41 | |
No, I have no intention of giving that money back. | 0:23:41 | 0:23:47 | |
Across the country, 164 BHS stores went bust. | 0:23:47 | 0:23:52 | |
After 60 years of trading, Liverpool's BHS finally | 0:23:52 | 0:23:54 | |
shut down in August. | 0:23:54 | 0:23:59 | |
The pension fund was still in dire straits. | 0:23:59 | 0:24:03 | |
Sir Philip has yet to do his bit to put it right. | 0:24:03 | 0:24:07 | |
BHS pensioners are counting the cost. | 0:24:07 | 0:24:17 | |
I've got two pensions. | 0:24:17 | 0:24:20 | |
One's gone down to ?7, which was near enough ?10, | 0:24:20 | 0:24:23 | |
and one's gone down to 80-something | 0:24:23 | 0:24:27 | |
which was 102, so it's not a lot, but it's still... | 0:24:27 | 0:24:30 | |
It's still a loss? | 0:24:30 | 0:24:31 | |
It's a lot when you add it together. | 0:24:31 | 0:24:33 | |
But for a select few at BHS, we'd heard there'd been | 0:24:33 | 0:24:36 | |
efforts to soften the blow, | 0:24:36 | 0:24:42 | |
special payments for staff losing their jobs at head office in London. | 0:24:42 | 0:24:45 | |
We've been told around 200 staff at BHS headquarters | 0:24:45 | 0:24:52 | |
received what they called a "Philip bonus, | 0:24:52 | 0:24:55 | |
in total more than ?2 million. | 0:24:55 | 0:25:00 | |
At first, Sir Philip's spokesman told us Arcadia funded | 0:25:00 | 0:25:03 | |
some ex gratia payments to help retain staff | 0:25:03 | 0:25:05 | |
as the administrator looked for a buyer. | 0:25:05 | 0:25:10 | |
But we knew staff were only told they were getting the payments | 0:25:10 | 0:25:13 | |
after no buyer was found. | 0:25:13 | 0:25:15 | |
At that point, Sir Philip's spokesman said payment | 0:25:15 | 0:25:18 | |
may have been delayed. | 0:25:18 | 0:25:25 | |
Sir Philip's generosity to a select few at head office | 0:25:25 | 0:25:29 | |
didn't extend to the likes of Anne and Keith in Stockport. | 0:25:29 | 0:25:35 | |
It doesn't surprise me, because the higher up | 0:25:35 | 0:25:39 | |
you are, the better looked after you are. | 0:25:39 | 0:25:42 | |
It's the people on the bottom end who do the hard work | 0:25:42 | 0:25:48 | |
at the sharp end, the coal face, whatever, who actually make the firm | 0:25:48 | 0:25:53 | |
work and generate the profit, always get left behind. | 0:25:53 | 0:25:57 | |
Anne and Keith have spent the last few | 0:25:57 | 0:25:59 | |
months looking for work. | 0:25:59 | 0:26:04 | |
Well, the future's, it's uncertain, as they say. | 0:26:04 | 0:26:07 | |
We don't know what's happening, I mean... | 0:26:07 | 0:26:10 | |
We've still got a mortgage to pay and we've still got | 0:26:10 | 0:26:12 | |
the bills to pay. | 0:26:12 | 0:26:14 | |
The couple are in no doubt who's to blame. | 0:26:14 | 0:26:21 | |
You know, he's got his nice yachts and stuff... | 0:26:21 | 0:26:25 | |
Our holiday was very different, but nice. | 0:26:25 | 0:26:27 | |
It was a week in a caravan. | 0:26:27 | 0:26:29 | |
He thinks his family's got all the money | 0:26:29 | 0:26:31 | |
and everything, but it'll come back to bite him on the bum. | 0:26:31 | 0:26:36 | |
There are three investigations now looking | 0:26:36 | 0:26:38 | |
into what happened at BHS. | 0:26:38 | 0:26:42 | |
And there are calls for Sir Philip to be stripped of his knighthood. | 0:26:42 | 0:26:49 | |
Lionheart's summer cruise is long over. | 0:26:49 | 0:26:53 | |
The money, however, is still rolling in. | 0:26:53 | 0:26:58 | |
The loan financing the sale of BHS from one of Lady Green's companies | 0:26:58 | 0:27:03 | |
to another is still earning them ?20 million a year. | 0:27:03 | 0:27:10 | |
I'd like him to do what he said all along, that he has regarded | 0:27:10 | 0:27:15 | |
the BHS staff as family, he feels this bond to the pensioners, | 0:27:15 | 0:27:19 | |
to cut the crap and actually start delivering to them. | 0:27:19 | 0:27:25 | |
The Prime Minister has vowed to stamp out | 0:27:25 | 0:27:27 | |
irresponsible corporate behaviour. | 0:27:27 | 0:27:32 | |
But four months after the collapse of BHS, there's still no sign | 0:27:32 | 0:27:36 | |
of a cheque for the stricken pension fund from the owners | 0:27:36 | 0:27:39 | |
of the Lionheart. | 0:27:39 | 0:27:49 |